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From: Vidiot <brown AT mrvideo DOT vidiot DOT com>
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Subject: Re: Reloaded Win XP, now need to reload cygwin - sorta
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:26:14 -0500 (CDT)
In-Reply-To: <46800D18.7010200@cygwin.com> from "Larry Hall (Cygwin)" at Jun 25, 2007 02:44:40 PM
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DaveK responded:

>  No, it's a really bad idea.

Interesting.

>  Your suggestion amounts to "People might look in the wrong place for the
>documentation, so put all the documentation in every single place they might
>look".

Yes and no.  As I pointed out, the on line web page says that the user
doc, in HTML and PDF format, is a COMPREHENSIVE user manual.  Last time I
looked, comprehensive didn't mean that important items were left out of
the documentation.  Starting services like cron and ssh are important.

You're saying that the user doc (HTML or PDF versions) is NOT a good place for
users to find instructions?  Strange, that is what I thought comprehensive
user docs were for.  So, for a user to click on User Docs and then search
those pages for cron configuration is wrong?  It is the front line document
on the web site and should contain said information. 

I'm sorry but that is just plain opposite of what on-line documentation is
supposed to provide.

>  Of course, anyone who bothers to read the FAQ will see the entry entitled
>"Where's the documentation", and know where to look for it, and anyone who
>doesn't bother to read the FAQ isn't going to see the information about how to
>set up servers even if we did pointlessly duplicate it there, so your idea
>would help precisely zero people.

The FAQ is huge.  I did a search of the FAQ for "cron" (browser text edit
search) and came up blank.

Gee, that is what FAQs are for, asking questions that are supposidly elsewhere
in the documentation (one hopes) and getting pointers as to where to go, if
it can be done.  So a simple FAQ entry like:

Q: How do I start services like cron, ssh and others?
A; See the README file pertaining to the particular service in
   /usr/share/doc/CYGWIN or run "cygrunsrv --help"

I think I got the path right, it is from memory, but you get the point.
It is simple entries like that that are user friendly.

Why are you so antiuser?

>  Do you work for the Department of Redundancy Department, by any chance?

Finding info in more than one place is not bad.  Cross referencing in
documentation is a good thing.

MB
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